The Man of a
Thousand Stories
Good advice and good humor
are the stock-in-trade of WVU's
beloved Joseph Gluck.
by Laura Spitznogle
Gluck,
in German, means "good luck." Joseph Gluck has certainly
brought good luck to the people he has worked with and the students
he has counseled over the past 60 years at WVU.
Gluck has been here through 11 presidents and 72 deans, has given
the invocation and benediction at the University's convocation
for 42 consecutive years, and has played Santa Claus for so long
that he can "ho, ho, ho" with the best of them.
Dean Gluck, as he is affectionately referred to around campus, is always friendly and ready to lift your day. If he calls you on the telephone, you might hear a "happy Tuesday" greeting on the other end of the line. When you open your mail, you could very well be receiving a pile of jokes from him. He has affected thousands of students, faculty, and staff at WVU with his humor over the years.
Perhaps the most beloved man at this University, Gluck is a retired administrator and now keeps an office in the old sun room in Purinton Hall. He works part-time as special counselor to students.
He wears black and red-rimmed glasses which usually sit on the end of his nose. Absent from his office are a computer monitor and keyboard. Instead, sitting on one side of the old metal desk is a vintage manual typewriter. There is a side door that leads to the veranda; he calls it his "escape hatch," although he rarely uses it.
You might think that Gluck at 84 years of age would be ready to retire completely, to spend more time with his family, or travel around the country in a Winnebago.
Gluck, however, is happiest in his service to the University: "In 1930, I heard a man at Jackson's Mill speak. He said that everybody in the world, including you and me, are born with natural talents. And that if you could find out what this talent was, and train yourself to use your talents in whatever your job is, that you would be happier all your life, and always successful."
Gluck took that advice to heart. It became the creed he has lived by during all his years at WVU.
Gluck, a former navy chaplain, began at WVU as a veterans coordinator. Later, he was promoted to vice president and dean of students, a position he described as the "long arm of the law."
His predecessor in that job, Dr. Richard Aspinall, gave him some advice: "You need one blind eye and one deaf ear so you can see only half of what is going on, and hear only half of what is going on. Otherwise, you'll go mad." Gluck says Aspinall was right.
As dean of students, Gluck frequently dealt with campus pranksters when WVU had no police officers, although he did get help from two night watchmen. He was witness to many panty raids, food riots, drinking parties, streakers, and students flunking out of school. He decided what punishment to deal out to captured pranksters. Gluck also dealt with scholarships and loans. It was definitely a job with variety.
During one panty raid, Gluck and then WVU President Irvin Stewart attempted to thwart the pranksters by showing up at the Delta Gamma house. Stewart and Gluck were late, the raiding party already gone. When they walked onto the porch the sisters had already hooked up a hose to the hot water tap, awaiting the possible return of the offenders, and they proceeded to douse the two administrators.
Gluck says he has always been more interested in the human side of university administration. When he retired as vice president and dean of students in 1980 and became a special counselor, it freed him. He began enjoying the "flip side," as he calls it. He is no longer the law's long arm. Instead, he helps students navigate around obstructive rules and regulations.
Every year, Gluck attends new student Orientation. He spends an hour telling jokes and explaining to freshman students what college can't do for them. He tells them that "what will finally make you happy in this world in the job you're in. It has to be your decision; the University doesn't take responsibility for this. A lot of people can help you, but you make the choice. What do you really like to do?
"I have seen some of the brightest people make the worst decisions. There are lawyers and doctors who are highly trained and sick to death of what they are doing." Gluck says he "shifts" people. He helps students find out what they will be happy doing in their careers.
"I had a man, 34 years old, came to see me—a second-year law student. He said, 'I don't like law.'" Gluck found out that the man's real love was medicine. He liked to be around people and to help them. "So I asked him if he ever heard of a physician's assistant, and told him they work with doctors. He was just as happy as he could be.
"To be a part of shifting people is a great job."
Helping students also helps Gluck, an ordained Baptist minister, fulfill his religious duties. His talents lie in working with people. That's what God wants him to do, he feels.
"My ministry is here in helping people, especially helping them find their way. If a person is down in the dumps, is failing, and I can get them into a field that they want to be in, that's really a form of revelation in their lives."
Other than his religious faith, there's another thing that has helped Gluck counsel students. "I'm lucky to be a native West Virginian so I could understand those people [students and parents]. Because I was born down in the sticks and grew up in a small town, I knew the minds of these people.
In a piece he wrote called "Once in a Lifetime," Gluck says: "One of the happiest things about getting older is reflecting on those special events of a lifetime that happen only once." Three such events in his life were a visit with the pope, a conversation with President Franklin Roosevelt, and an exclusive ride on the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus train.
The University and the Morgantown community have found a couple of ways to honor this man who has been here for so long. The latest is being named this year's Citizen of the Year by the Celebration of America Committee, recognition of his faithful participation in patriotic events and his many years of service to the community. A banner went up in front of Purinton House with his name in red, white, and blue.
Some years ago, WVU honored Gluck by naming a theater in the Mountainlair after him. Gluck has a story about this. "One time, a student said to me, 'That theater over there. It's the same name as yours; was it your grandfather?' I replied, 'No, that's me.' "
"'It can't be,' the student said. 'You have to be dead to have something named after you.' I said, 'Well, I'll tell you, friend. They thought I was going, and they jumped the gun.'"
|
|
|
|